Commercial switchable glazing devices are well known for use as mirrors in motor vehicles, automotive windows, aircraft window assemblies, sunroofs, skylights, and architectural windows. Such devices may comprise, for example, inorganic electrochromic devices, organic electrochromic devices, switchable mirrors, and hybrids of these having two conducting layers with one or more active layers between the conducting layers. When a voltage is applied across these conducting layers the optical properties of a layer or layers in between change. Such optical property changes are typically a modulation of the transmissivity of the visible or the solar subportion of the electromagnetic spectrum. For convenience, the two optical states will be referred to as a lightened state and a darkened state in the following discussion, but it should be understood that these are merely examples and relative terms (i.e., one of the two states is “lighter” or more transmissive than the other state) and that there could be a set of lightened and darkened states between the extremes that are attainable for a specific electrochromic device; for example, it is feasible to switch between intermediate lightened and darkened states in such a set.
Switching between a lightened and a darkened state in relatively small electrochromic devices such as an electrochromic rear-view mirror assembly is typically quick and uniform, whereas switching between the lightened and darkened state in a large area electrochromic device can be slow and spatially non-uniform. Gradual, non-uniform coloring or switching is a common problem associated with large area electrochromic devices. This problem, commonly referred to as the “iris effect,” is typically the result of the voltage drop through the transparent conductive coatings providing electrical contact to one side or both sides of the device. For example, when a voltage is initially applied to the device, the potential is typically the greatest in the vicinity of the edge of the device (where the voltage is applied) and the least at the center of the device. As a result, there may be a significant difference between the transmissivity near the edge of the device and the transmissivity at the center of the device. Over time, however, the difference in applied voltage between the center and edge decreases and the difference in transmissivity at the center and edge of the device decreases. In such circumstances, the electrochromic medium will typically display non-uniform transmissivity by initially changing the transmissivity of the device in the vicinity of the applied potential, with the transmissivity gradually and progressively changing towards the center of the device as the switching progresses. While the iris effect is most commonly observed in relatively large devices, it also can be present in smaller devices that have correspondingly higher resistivity conducting layers.